Taming the Lone Wolf
by whitecrossgirl
Summary: Spy AU. A traitor has been leaking information about the Agency to the enemy. Arthur and Merlin are assigned to find the traitor and stop them. This also means having to work with the Lone Wolf, an agent who refuses to work as part of a team. Can the three of them work together and stop the traitor before it's too late or will they end up killing one another first?


**AN: This idea was given to me by Lara Smith, all credit for the idea goes to her. Spy AU, I own nothing. **

"This cannot be happening." Arthur commented looking at Merlin and the Director in disbelief. Merlin also looked stunned and regarded the Director uncertainly.

"How can you be sure there is a traitor in our midst?" Merlin asked and the Director handed him three tablets with the evidence stored onto it. The spy organisation boasted the best security systems in the world yet a hacker had been able to get in and cause carnage. Details regarding agents and their whereabouts had been leaked online, prompting chaos as the organisation hurried to get the agents to safety before they were taken out. Aside from that, details regarding missions had also been leaked as several of their agents' recent missions had almost fallen through or failed completely. All the evidence pointed to a possible inside job and therefore the Director had called in his three best agents to take the case.

"All the evidence points that way." The Director replied.

"I don't mean that, I mean how can you expect us to work with the Lone Wolf?" Arthur demanded as Merlin handed him his tablet. "She's reckless, arrogant, believes she is better than anyone else and is a living, breathing ice queen. She's an absolute nightmare."

"I take offense to that."

Gwen dropped from the ceiling, landing gracefully into the chair below and nodded at the Director who didn't bother to react at her sudden appearance from the ceiling. Merlin and Arthur managed to hide their shock and Merlin handed Gwen her tablet.

"You're late." The Director commented.

"I would have been here sooner but I was delayed in Tokyo thanks to this hacker." Gwen shrugged. "Anyway what do we know?"

"It's definitely an inside job and all the evidence points to them working for the Camlann Institute. I need you three to find whoever this traitor is and stop them before any more of our agents are put at risk." The Director explained.

"Why the three of us?" Merlin asked, he was simply curious, he and Arthur worked together on most missions but as Arthur had already stated, Gwen preferred to work alone and was rarely seen around the organisation's headquarters.

"I need my best agents working this assignment. Whenever you find the traitor you'll need to stop them passing on any more information by any means necessary." The Director explained.

"Well that explains why you have Emrys and Excalibur but why do you need me?" Gwen asked, repeating Merlin's earlier question and shooting the men suspicious looks. "I work alone."

"Because of your skill set and because I ordered it. Now find me this traitor otherwise I may reconsider why I chose to let you stay in this agency after what happened in Chile." The Director snapped and Gwen nodded obediently.

"Yes sir," Gwen replied and got to her feet. "Come on, we may as well get started."

As he watched the three agents leave his office, Uther allowed himself a rare smile. Whilst having a traitor in his organisation was no laughing matter, he could tell that things were about to get quite interesting between those particular agents. His son was remarkably like his father when it came to female spies. He also knew that after what had happened in Chile, it was time for the Lone Wolf to stop living up to her nickname and learn to work alongside other agents again. if they were able to crack the case, not only would they save the agency but Uther knew he could have possibly the best team of spies in the world in front of him.

As long as they didn't kill each other first.

"Ok so what does this tell us?" Arthur asked as the three spies sat on the roof of the headquarters with the information on tablets in their hands. It was the only place in headquarters that had no surveillance cameras and they knew they wouldn't be overheard or found.

"That I prefer iPads." Gwen quipped as she regarded the tablet in her hands.

"Seriously though if there is a traitor in our midst they're extremely skilled with their technology. Most of this information is Level One clearance and only the director and deputy director have that level of authority. It makes no sense for the Director to betray his own organisation and Gaius would sooner kill himself than betray the agency." Merlin explained as he scanned through the information on his tablet, his photographic memory taking in every last detail.

"We need to consider who could have possible links to Camlann. This all started happening over the past month but they would need to be here longer than that in order to familiarise themselves with the systems and not arouse suspicion. Therefore I wouldn't say it's a new agent, they wouldn't be that cocky to try and hack the systems and play Judas." Arthur replied.

"Not true, I managed to hack into Level Two clearance on my second day." Merlin replied and Arthur looked at him.

"You created that system of course you were able to hack it." Arthur retorted.

"Exactly why I'm annoyed. Whoever did this was smarter than me and I'm one of the smartest people in the world." Merlin claimed as he read over what they had been given. "From what I can see, whoever did this knew what they were looking for. Arthur's right, this isn't a new agent. It's someone much higher up."

"What would they gain from betraying the organisation? Whatever Camlann's offering it can't be enough for them to want to do this. We also should look at motives. Who inside the agency has a reason to betray it?" Arthur questioned.

"What will I do when this person is found?" Gwen asked and Arthur looked at her.

"What will _we_ do you mean. Listen Wolf Girl, as much as we all hate it for now you have to work with us so I suggest you stop acting like a child and offer something useful." Arthur snapped. He had no time for Gwen to live up to her codename. Their fellow spies and even themselves were in danger. Right now the three of them were a team and had to work together. He wasn't happy with the situation either but if they didn't so something then more and more agents stood the risk of being hurt, kidnapped or even killed if Camlann had their way.

"I am. You need to look at the big picture. We don't know what all has been passed on. For all we know this person has been passing information for years. We can't just do what you do and put a round through their head. If we do this properly we could take down the Camlann Institute once and for all." Gwen retorted. There was a reason why Arthur's codename was Excalibur. Like the supposedly undefeatable sword of legend, Arthur preferred to deal with his enemies with weapons rather than words.

"Arthur, Gwen's right. From what I can see, this has been happening bit by bit for at least two years. Things that weren't connected because they were easy to dismiss but if they're linked together they form a pattern. Whoever's doing this is becoming more confident. If they get too confident, we can get them then." Merlin explained and Gwen nodded at Merlin.

"That's what I was thinking. When we find them, we don't act straight away but wait until their next meet up or drop off. Then we get them and whoever they're meeting with from Camlann. Then if we're lucky, that person will let us know what we need to know." Gwen explained.

"How do we know that will work?" Arthur asked.

"You'd be surprised how much you can get out of a man with a little bit of flirting and a gun to the balls." Gwen retorted and she checked her watch. "I'd love to stay and help you guys but I've got a date with a rifle and a warlord named Helios."

With that Gwen returned inside and as soon as she was gone Arthur glared at Merlin and let loose his frustration. It was bad enough that a traitor inside the organisation was playing god with their lives but they were also expected to work with Gwen too. It was clear to Arthur that this was setting them all up for absolute disaster. Gwen refused to work with anyone and if she did then she refused point blank to cooperate with them. Arthur honestly had no clue what to make of Gwen. Other agents had at least one partner and he could tell everything about them by looking at them. You could tell who was the dominant partner, who worked in groups as well as which pairs of agents had broken that classic no-fraternisation rule and were partners in every way. Gwen however was an anomaly. She was always on her own, even when she wasn't on missions, refusing to work alongside other agents for anything, even training. That however was due to the fact no agent wanted to be the unfortunate soul to have Gwen for a sparring partner.

Merlin looked at Arthur knowingly. They had been partners since they began training and he knew his friend inside out. "You're still holding that grudge from the day she kicked your ass aren't you?"

"No!" Arthur retorted and Merlin smirked.

_Arthur, Merlin and the other recruits stood in the training gym. All agents were expected to have some degree of combat skills and whilst they were having a training exercise, Leon was making a competition out of it. Basically if an agent lost their match they were 'killed' and the winner progressed to the next level in order to see who could hold their own longest in hand to hand combat. After two hours and twenty fights later, it was Arthur against Gwen in the final match with all the other agents being 'killed'._

"_Don't worry, I'll go easy on you." Arthur commented, he had won all his fights with ease due to a childhood of kickboxing and judo classes. Gwen hadn't dignified his comment with a response and Leon looked at the two agents._

"_Three, two, one, go!" Leon instructed. _

_Arthur began jumping around, attacking Gwen at every angle. Gwen dodged, blocked and wove around his attacks and unlike the way she had taken out her other opponents, she seemed to be refusing to fight. Arthur turned to kick Gwen who ducked down and raised her fist. She only hit Arthur once but that was all she needed as her fist collided with that one weak spot every man possessed. _

"_Winner," Leon announced as he raised Gwen's arm aloft while Arthur knelt on the floor doubled over, clutching himself and swearing in a variety of languages under his breath. Gwen offered her hand to Arthur._

"_You fought well." Gwen commented._

"_You fought dirty." Arthur retorted and Gwen shrugged her shoulders._

"_That's how you win. Know your enemies and their weaknesses. It shouldn't have hurt that much given that your massive ego and fondness for the biggest weapons is compensating for something." Gwen retorted and walked away, Arthur staring behind her._

"I do not hold a grudge." Arthur claimed and Merlin snorted.

"Sure you don't." Merlin commented.

"I don't. I just don't know what to make of her and I don't like that. I need to know everything before I can make judgements on people. If I don't know them, I don't trust them and given that we're tracking down a traitor; trust is vital." Arthur replied as he tapped at his tablet again.

"And the fact she punched you in the balls doesn't help your judgement of character." Merlin stated knowingly and ducked an intended slap to the head.

"Shut up Merlin."

Three weeks, five more almost-killed agents and the Director firing threats at them from every angle later found Merlin, Arthur and Gwen coming close to finding out who the traitor in the organisation was. Over the past three weeks, they had all been relieved of their missions and forced to work together to find the answers they were looking for. Whilst Merlin and Gwen had managed to build up some form of mild friendship, Gwen and Arthur were still communicating solely through wise-cracks and one-up comments. However over the past few weeks they had built up a level of trust to the extent that all of them had shared their stories about how they had came to be part of the agency as well as their special skill; Arthur being the director's son and able to turn almost everything into a lethal weapon, Merlin's genius being used to its full potential and Gwen's undercover skills as well as being fluent in a dozen languages. It was late one evening as they neared their breakthrough, that Arthur felt brave enough to ask Gwen the one question he had had burning in his mind for as long as he'd known her.

"So Gwen, what do you have against working with other people?" Arthur asked bluntly causing Merlin to clap a hand to his forehead and Gwen's smile to disappear from her face.

"I don't have anything against working with other people. I just prefer to work alone." Gwen replied.

"But why, surely it's better to work as part of a team. It means someone has your back when things go wrong." Arthur pressed. He and Merlin always had each other's backs. Whenever their missions went pear-shaped, they both knew the other would be able to have some sort of plan or that they could work together to sort themselves out. Gwen let out a sigh, hugged her knees before looking at her fellow agents, deciding that she trusted them enough to tell them the truth.

"I used to have a partner. Codename Lake. His real name was Lancelot. We worked together for over a year and eventually ended up breaking the most important rule in the agency. We fell in love. Anyway a few years ago we were assigned to find and take out a ring of drug-smugglers in Chile known as _Los Tonos_ or 'The Shades', the drugs they were making were ten times more powerful than heroin and ten times as addictive. We tracked them down to a warehouse where all their drugs were stored ready for shipment and we had it rigged to blow." Gwen explained.

"So Lancelot died in the explosion?" Merlin asked as he and Arthur began to understand. It was hard to lose an agent in the field, but losing a partner was harder than anything.

"No. Two months later I got a call asking me to go back to Chile. Someone had found him and the only information they had was his ID and my number. Naturally I went straight to Chile to find him. Only the Lancelot I found wasn't the Lancelot I knew. Some of the Los Tonos members who weren't there that night found him and got him hooked on their drugs. It was awful to see, he was like a zombie. He could barely walk or talk and if he didn't have a fix every hour, he would go into convulsions. The doctors could do anything to help him other than drug him up with methadone or whatever crap they give junkies in rehab but it made no difference; he was just in that comatose state all the time. In the end I had no alternative." Gwen confessed.

"You killed him." Merlin said in a whisper.

"When I was asked, I said he overdosed and I wasn't able to stop him. The truth was that I managed to get some of that junk and allowed him to have too much. It sounds awful but it was like putting a dog down. He had no sense of self anymore, couldn't do anything for himself and it was better than having him in some hospital getting other crap pumped into him all the time. It was just kinder for him." Gwen explained as she furiously wiped her eyes from the tears she had sworn never to cry again.

"So that's what my father meant when he said about Chile." Arthur stated as he felt guilt for forcing Gwen to reveal the truth about her past.

"I wanted to leave after that. I couldn't trust myself to work with other agents again; I just knew that if I did, someday it would be them I could end up having to kill. I couldn't face that. If I'm on my own, I just have myself to look out for. Nobody else gets hurt because of me. I know how to handle myself and can cope on missions." Gwen confessed. It was hard being on her own but she seen it as her penance for what she'd done and her way of protecting her fellow agents. She was too dangerous to have as a partner. Therefore she had built up that wall around her to protect herself and the others. A wall that Arthur and Merlin were currently smashing down.

"Gwen," Merlin began but Gwen got to her feet and walked out of the room. Arthur and Merlin looked at one another before Arthur got to his feet.

"I'll go, you're near a breakthrough. Let us know when you've got it." Arthur said and he walked out of the room. over the past three weeks, the three of them had been holed up in a private room in the agency's headquarters and during that time, he and Merlin had found out that Gwen had secured herself dozens of little hideaways where she went to when she needed her alone time. However Arthur knew that she wouldn't be in any of those and instead he headed for the roof. As expected, Gwen was standing on the roof, staring out at the city underneath the darkening sky.

"I know you're there. That's bad spying." Gwen commented without turning around as she attempted to withhold her frustration. A spy never showed weakness and she just had.

"I wanted to apologise for what I said." Arthur replied and Gwen looked at him and shrugged. She had gotten used to the comments about her self-imposed exile from the other agents. It suited her, being alone.

"It's fine, you're not the first and you won't be the last. Besides I work better alone." Gwen stated and Arthur walked up to her and gave her a supportive look.

"I know I wasn't happy about having to work with you but that's changed. I mean we've made a good team. You found the sub pattern that Merlin and I missed and probably halved the time we needed to find this guy. I hate to admit it but my father made the right choice putting the three of us together for this mission." Arthur confessed and Gwen gave a wan smile. "Honestly, I'm glad he did."

Gwen smiled back and for a moment the two agents were silent. For a moment they weren't spies working for an international organisation. They weren't master assassins and fighters. They were just two people. Two friends. Or maybe they were something more than that. Arthur made the first move, slowly wrapping Gwen in a hug; something he felt she needed after finally telling the truth about what she had had to do and as they stood on the roof in an awkward hug, the two spies looked at one another. Simultaneously they began to close the gap between them.

"I've found it!"

Merlin burst out onto the roof as Arthur and Gwen broke apart, blushing. Merlin looked at his fellow agents, realised what had happened and scratched the back of his head. Oops. For a moment there was an awkward silence before Arthur cleared his throat and looked at Merlin.

"Who is it?" Arthur asked, the question bringing them all back to the matter at hand. Merlin blinked before handing his tablet to Arthur and Gwen to see for themselves. The revelation was like a punch in the gut to Arthur as he stared at the evidence beforehand.

"My uncle."


End file.
